The oldest published clam chowder recipe
1 info file
Ingredients
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Directions
The following is from "Down East Chowder", a small booklet printed in Boston by John Thorne in 1982.
The recipe comes from the Boston Evening Post, September 23, 1751, and is the first known chowder recipe - and the first one ever to appear in this country.
"Directions for making a CHOUDER First lay some Onions to keep the Pork from burning, Because in Chouder there can be no turning; Then lay some Pork in Slices very thin, Thus you in Chouder always must begin.
Next lay some Fish cut crossways very nice Then season well with Pepper, Salt and Spice; Parsley, Sweet-Marjoram, Savory and Thyme, Then Biscuit next which must be soak'd some Time.
Thus your Foundation laid, you will be able To raise a Chouder, high as Tower of Babel; For by repeating o're the Same again, You may make Chouder for a thousand Men.
Last Bottle of Claret, with Water eno' to smother 'em, You'l have a Mess which some call Omnium gather 'em. " Mr. Thorne also notes that this recipe shows Americans of the time were still cooking from Elizabethan sources by the complex use of herbs and spice. Also, the onions show that the salt pork of the time was not the fatty bacon-like meat we know today. The onions absorbed the liquid and kept the pork from burning on the bottom of the pot. He also noted that today we would not use that much or that type of wine in the recipe. "Claret is necessary to stand up to the powerful flavoring of the whole... but if you were to make such a recipe, the result would be a huge, scarlet-colored, fish-flavored pudding. This is certainly what the original, ocean-born chowders resembled, not only because it was a rib-sticking meal for men who needed the calories, but also because it uses a minimum of one of the most precious of shipboard supplies: water. These layered chowders persist in our cooking up to this century because this form of chowder represented a high-calorie, inexpensive, easy-to-prepare meal. The huge amount of fish (and later clams) that these recipes call for was then the norm. As Waverley Root and Richard de Rochemont write in EATING IN AMERICA: "A single chicken does not exist. 'Take a pair of large fat fowls,' says the recipe for 'rich white soup' in Eliza Leslie's DIRECTIONS FOR COOKERY (1828), naming the smallest conceivable unit of poultry..." Quoted text is from "Down East Chowder" by Jim Thorne, published in 1982 by Jackdaw Press, Box 371, Essex Station, Boston MA 02112.
Submitted By DAVE SACERDOTE On 12-06-95